069

Rumors that Jessie had unexpectedly manifested Sword Aura brought everyone running.

It was an event that was bound to happen.

“No, really, this is ridiculous, the world can be unfair, but why her? Not anyone else, but someone like her?!”

Rozalin shouted in disbelief.

It was understandable, as Rozalin still hadn't been able to draw out Sword Aura since that day.

“Instructor! Swing your sword! Concentrate!”

Furious, Rozalin, holding a wooden sword, huffed and puffed as she spoke to Jessie.

Jessie was clearly about 10 years older and had a higher rank within the school.

However, she was completely cowed by Rozalin, whimpering “Heeeek” as she swung her sword with a wary look.

A thick, milky aura appeared on her wooden sword, and almost simultaneously, Jessie’s sword flowed through the air.

Thud.

And, this time again, almost simultaneously, Rozalin’s sword struck Jessie’s wrist, causing her to drop her sword.

People’s gazes gathered once on the wooden sword that fell to the ground, then back to Jessie.

“See this! It’s different from Pan! Her swordsmanship is terrible and her strength is weak! What’s so special about her that she awakens mana! Aaaaargh!”

Humiliated in front of everyone, Jessie’s face turned somewhat red.

However, sadly, there was no room for rebuttal.

No matter how much Jessie was a swordsmanship instructor and in charge of teaching a class, it was true that her skills were inferior compared to the geniuses who had come back from ten years in the future.

“B-but I can’t use it…”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

At Jessie’s small mutter, Rozalin rolled on the ground.

The juniors, not knowing what to do at their senior’s disgraceful behavior, averted their gazes.

But that tantrum was mild.

Sordian, with dark circles under his eyes, approached silently.

“I see. The teacher was right. So getting hit directly by Teacher Berlis’s mana is the proper way, is it?”

Hearing him mutter things like that.

“No. Before being woken up by Teacher Berlis, isn’t it only right to get hit once by Brother Cassian and faint first?”

Seeing Hati say things like that.

“Teacher! Then please hit me once on the head! It’s hard, so you can hit me with the intent to kill! I’ll endure it! Fuck, what’s the big deal if I get mana!”

Seeing Rozalin babbling things like that and losing her mind over and over again.

Everything failed.

Of course, it means that, exhausted by their stubbornness, I eventually tried everything one by one.

Teacher Berlis laughed with a troubled look unlike her usual self and said.

“This is troublesome. Everyone is coming to me asking me to shake their souls.”

“Everyone, including me?”

“Over the past two days, more than ten people have come and gone. They all ask me to make them faint, to wake them up from fainting with the strongest shock, they’re out of their minds, you know?”

“It must be that important to them.”

“You talk as if it’s not very important to you, teacher?”

Is it?

Perhaps.

I closed my eyes and pictured a sword in my heart.

The whole world became dark, and within it, I stood holding a sword.

In my imagination, I swung the sword freely, knowing no pain.

Where my sword was aimed.

Nothing but darkness existed.

“That must be it.”

Rozalin, Hati, Avril, Yuria.

The people who returned from the future say they have to fight demons to save this world, and that this Sword Aura is important to solve the problem of those demons.

But I have never seen a demon.

Maybe that's why it doesn't feel real yet.

My heart wasn't as greatly moved as theirs.

“It is a surprising discovery~ People who only carried swords can now cut magic. Isn’t it a new revolution? Whether they can actually do it is a separate matter, though.”

Berlis chuckled, ‘huhu’, and lightly touched my shoulder.

It was a gesture as if to comfort me.

“What do you want to do amidst these changes? Teacher, you should also organize your thoughts quickly.”

With those words, Berlis’s figure slowly disappeared.

By the way, Teacher Berlis, it must be class time by now.

‘She loves research but is half-hearted about her classes.’

According to the students in the advancement and graduation classes, Teacher Berlis was lecturing properly.

However, since there was no one with outstanding magical talent to keep up with her level, it seemed that even the most basic classes were extremely difficult.

That's probably why she can spend time like that.

“I! Cannot! Accept this! If you’re going to use! Mana! Kill me! Surpass me! Step on my corpse! And use it!”

“T-Teacher! Please save me!”

It seemed Rozalin was going on a rampage again.

I don't know why I'm Instructor Jessie's teacher, but I felt like I should go.

I returned to the training ground and calmed down the rampaging Rozalin.

* * *

Break time.

I called Instructor Jessie to the faculty office.

When I brewed a cup of tea and handed it to her as she approached hesitantly, she accepted the drink with a body stiff with tension, like a new recruit in front of a general.

Even graduate students wouldn’t be this nervous.

“I’m sorry my students are a bit peculiar.”

“N-n-no! It’s only natural that the other seniors are angry with me, a maggot in terms of both swordsmanship and handling students, for using strange techniques…”

“You can stop the self-deprecation. Swordsmanship skills improve with effort. My skills are only third-rate too.”

“N-n-no, how can Teacher Cassian be third-rate, that’s nonsense, no, then who is second-rate or first-rate, is there even such a person in this world?”

I drank my tea, giving Instructor Jessie time to collect herself a bit more.

The warm liquid settled warmly throughout my body.

Seeing me, Instructor Jessie also took a sip of her tea, watching my reaction.

I could see a faint reddish warmth rising on her cheeks and her expression relaxing.

It seemed to be effective.

“I called you today because I wanted to hear a bit about your past.”

“M-my story?”

“Yes. Like your life story.”

“Why would you be interested in a third-rate, no, fourth or fifth-rate instructor like me…”

“Stop the self-deprecation. There’s really no need for it.”

She was the only one who created aura.

Sordian, who had been trying continuously for two months, and Rozalin, whom I had personally guided with mana, had not succeeded.

It was unfair to dismiss it simply as a lack of swordsmanship.

At my words, Jessie looked at me with her mouth shut tight.

Then.

“B-but I, I, almost k-killed all, all, all my students…”

Her voice trembled as she continued speaking.

“I almost killed them… someone like me, such a, ridiculous…”

I think I understand a little now.

The fear that she almost killed her students seemed to have made her withdraw.

Instead of clumsy consolation, I just let her cry to her heart's content.

Saying it’s okay, or that it couldn’t be helped, wouldn’t be much comfort in a situation like this.

In the end, no one died.

No one was lost, and everything worked out well.

How violent is that kind of story?

‘Chairman. Result-oriented education leaves scars like this on the hearts of its members.’

Instead, I created a time and space where she, as an instructor, could cry freely.

Here, Instructor Jessie wouldn't have to worry about other people's gazes.

That's probably why she cried like that with peace of mind.

By the time I finished the tea in my cup and a little more time had passed, the sobbing subsided a bit.

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay. You didn’t have much time or place to cry. So, I want to know more about what kind of person Teacher Jessie is.”

“Uh, um…”

“I roughly know what kind of lives my students and the security guards lived. So I’m going to compare it with your life and find the differences. Then they will also be able to use Sword Aura and bother you less.”

Jessie, holding a handkerchief, sniffled once and slowly began to tell her story.

“I’m the second daughter of a small noble family in the Oatland Islands.”

“The Oatland Islands… that’s the place destroyed by the Empire about 15 years ago.”

“Yes… My father was a knight-class Danseung noble, and he abandoned the lord who sacrificed his life along with his territory and fled with his family.”

The daughter of a knight who betrayed his lord out of fear of death.

Even if she wasn't the one who fled, it was an unacceptable disgrace.

“Since that day, my father drank all his life… and didn’t teach us the sword. Still, my older sister said we should learn some swordsmanship to survive, so we held hands and enrolled in a swordsmanship school.”

According to Jessie’s story, she and her family seemed to have some talent for the sword.

They received decent grades at the swordsmanship school they enrolled in for training.

Her older sister and brothers also seemed to have gained some talent and grown.

But her talent, and her family’s talent, ended exactly there.

They didn't have outstanding martial prowess to establish merit to wipe away the disgrace, nor did they have courage.

Eventually, they scattered to make a living.

“And then I drifted here.”

“Did you come after seeing the job posting from the Goldline Merchant Guild?”

“No, the teacher from Class D who was with me used to lecture at the academy occasionally, and he said he was looking for a new job and asked me to come with him…”

Listening to her story, my intuition twitched subtly.

Surely not, right? Really?

“Teacher Jessie?”

“Yes.”

“What were you thinking when you swung your sword and emitted Sword Aura?”

“Pardon? Ah, well, I did as you said, teacher.”

“Specifically.”

Jessie looked into the air as if reflecting on my words and slowly counted on her fingers.

“You said to convince? my body? of my intention before swinging the sword, but I didn’t really know what that meant. And, erasing the sword’s thoughts was also too abstract, so I couldn’t understand it.”

She had hardly understood anything I said.

“So I just focused on erasing, and you said to make my intention clear, but since I didn’t have any intention, I just thought I’d accept your words as they were…”

She had just accepted my words literally.

To confirm, I handed Teacher Jessie the wooden sword I had placed obliquely in the faculty office.

“Y-yes?”

“Take that and assume the stance. Breathe deeply. Think of letting the surrounding air flow through your entire body.”

Instructor Jessie listened to my words literally, almost strangely so, from the beginning.

She didn’t interpret or think about my words, she just accepted them simply and, to put it nicely, boldly, or to put it badly, ignorantly.

As if she had no ego of her own.

“Swing!”

When I shouted loudly, she was startled and swung the sword down.

And on that sword, a milky aura was shimmering faintly.

“Haha.”

The reason Instructor Jessie awakened Sword Aura was… because she’s a person with a clean brain and no thoughts, a bit stupid and passive, and has no opinions of her own.

…How am I supposed to teach this to Rozalin, Sordian, and Avril?

My mind went blank.